Council approves smoking ban at Fiesta parades

This Fiesta, you can “smoke’em if you got’em” at the parades, but you run the risk of being fined.

City Council unanimously approved a smoking ban at Fiesta’s largest parades  Battle of Flowers, Fiesta Flambeau and Texas Cavaliers’ River Parade.

Smoking is now prohibited along the public right of ways during the parades. And Mayor Julian Castro recommended specifying the exact duration of the ban. For example, enforcement would begin an hour before the parade, and end an hour after, he recommended.

The ban does not include private property along parade routes, and restaurant patios on the River Walk.

“Here’s the thing about a parade: you can’t choose who you’re going to sit next to,” Castro said. “These parades attract more than 200,000 folks and a lot of those people are children.”

Councilman W. Reed Williams doubted that secondhand smoke caused as much damage outdoors as it does indoors. “There’s a big difference in walking through a crowd and sitting in a cafe smoking,” Williams said. Still, Williams said, the city has a public health obligation.

For City Councilwoman Elisa Chan, the decision was a no-brainer because parades are family events.

“Unlike the previous ordinance, where individuals could make decisions whether to take their daughters or kids to the pool hall, in this case, I do not know who will be sitting around me.”

Now that the ordinance has passed, the city estimates that 90 percent of the seating along Fiesta parade routes will be smoke-free. Fiesta’s three major parades combine to attract close to 1 million spectators annually.